


A Spectral Sun

by Esteliel



Category: Les Travailleurs de la mer | Toilers of the Sea - Victor Hugo
Genre: Other, Suicide Attempt, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Yuleporn, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:54:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21900550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: It was the ocean which called to him that night.
Relationships: Gilliatt/Octopus
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A Spectral Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iberiandoctor (Jehane)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jehane/gifts).



> Thank you to Kainosite for the valiant last minute past-midnight beta, you are a hero! <3

> _"At night, however, and particularly in the hot season, it becomes phosphorescent. These horrible creatures have their passions; their submarine nuptials. Then it adorns itself, burns and illumines; and from the height of some rock, it may be seen in the deep obscurity of the waves below, expanding with a pale irradiation—a spectral sun."_

The wind blew that night, sending waves crashing against the cliffs of the Channel Islands, nearly sinking a foolhardy fisherman who had thought to risk his boat in the waters of Aurigny and found himself barely escaping death at the hands of the Ortach rock, and making the waters rise in the little harbor Gilliatt had built with his own hands there between the rocks of the Douvres.

His work held fast; no waves broke that barricade built to withstand Nature herself. Yet even so, the waters rose a little, and Gilliatt, who had worked hard from sunrise to sunset, found it difficult to find sleep on the Durande, where he had chosen to spend the night in case the wind turned into a storm and made swift action necessary.

He was hungry; he had nearly run out of his rye flour, and there were not many limpets left to find on these rocks he had scoured with the diligence of a half-starved shipwrecked man—yet his ship was whole, his harbor safe, and it was merely Gilliatt’s own resolve that held him here, where so many had found their death through the centuries.

Gilliatt ignored the hunger, as he ignored the coldness of the air and the harsh bite of the wind. There was not much he could do, in any case, but to rise regardless, morning after morning, and face the great wreck of the Durande with nothing but the determination that had become all that held him upright.

He had come because of Déruchette; in those days, he could barely recall her face, and a world in which he had once stood before a walled garden and played the bagpipes seemed a strange, mysterious thing to consider, of little more substance than a dream.

What was real was the saltwater on his skin, the calluses on his hands, the weight of the iron machinery of the steamboat which he was, little by little, bringing forward by peeling away all the layers of steel that encased that still beating heart of the ship. There on that rock out in the ocean, betimes these two seemed to have become one and the same, and to work on the Durande’s mechanical heart was to touch the heart of Déruchette with his careful fingers.

That night, there were no thoughts of Déruchette on his mind, no thoughts of his home in the Bû de la Rue, of Mess Lethierry, or even of the birds, the only living creatures whose company he had known in weeks.

In his dreams, there was the ocean, which had become his entire world; it was friend and adversary, mother and lover, surrounding him without end for so many weeks that the thought of land, of islands where people lived and died without ever setting foot in the ocean, seemed no more than a phantom of his mind.

It was the ocean which called to him that night. In his dream, he opened his eyes, roused by a strange illumination. All around him, the sea had turned into living fire—only it was not the red gleam of flames, but a cold, pale glow, a phosphorescent light that seemed to emanate from the ocean itself.

In his dream, he slowly moved to where the water was lapping at the side of the Durande and held his hand into it.

Beneath the water, his hand shone with the same eerie radiance. Below, he could see schools of fish, glowing like shards of light. Algae undulated below the waves, illuminated as well, and when he raised his eyes to the horizon, he saw that this strange illumination was floating through the ocean like threads of silver.

He raised his hand from the water. Light fell from it like dew, splashing onto his thighs, soaking into the ever-wet fabric of his clothes which had not been dry since he had first embarked on his errand.

Again his eye was drawn to the water. It was the first thing of beauty he had seen since he had arrived here, week after week of hunger and cold and wetness and agonizing work passing until he had almost forgotten who he was, and why he was here.

Now he drew a deep breath, remembering the solitary games of his childhood. Slowly, he drew off his clothes and left them behind on the deck of the Durande. Then, just as slowly, he slipped into the water.

The water was warmer than usual. The strange glow surrounded him. Beneath the water, he could make out the outline of his limbs as he floated—his legs, his arms, his fingers, even his genitals surrounded by a gentle light.

Shyly, his fingers sought out his shaft, then drew back when he felt his body respond. This was not something he had ever given much of his attention to; his life had been too full with the solitary adventures of the coast and the ocean, his body a well-honed tool that he trusted as much as his sloop, though one he rarely felt the need to pay more attention to than what was necessary to keep it in working condition.

Now, outlined by the eerie light, he could observe his shaft slowly stiffening until it stood fully erect from the patch of dark curls.

The water held him in a gentle embrace. There was a slight current that brushed with ghostly fingers against his testicles, caressing the insides of his thighs.

He spread out his arms, floating in the water, every pulse of his aroused body harder to resist until at last, finally, he gave in.

Still floating, he allowed his eyes to close, his need guiding his hand as it slipped downward again. Tenderly, his fingers drew through the patch of curls, then down the inside of his thigh, the touch making him tremble with a yearning he had never experienced before. When he drew back upwards, his fingertips traced across his testicles, his stomach tightening, and then further upwards until at last, they ghosted along the full length of his shaft.

Lean, hungry, exposed to the angry elements of wind and ocean for weeks without the smallest glimpse of another human soul, he felt for the first time the return of some of the man he had been before the endless days of work on the wrecked Durande had taken over every waking thought until he ceased to be human even in his own mind.

A warmth built inside him, gentle at first, then slowly increasing until he felt himself trembling, his fingers tight around his cock as he drifted in the water. The water carried him easily, the current cradling him like a lover, so that at first, he did not even realize that the warmth that enveloped him so lovingly was no longer only that of his own hands.

Something hot and tender had begun to enfold him. As he floated in the water, stroking himself, it seemed as if an even warmer current rose from the depth of the ocean, caressing along his legs. Gilliatt sighed dreamily, allowing the warm water to carry him, barely even aware anymore of where he was and what was happening to him.

Need overwhelmed him until he was trembling in the water, achingly hot, held afloat by some other force that had gently taken hold of him. Strings of heat had wound themselves around his legs, pliant yet strong, holding him while he trembled. It was as if the sea itself had come to caress him with limbs that were smooth and firm, wet and hot, holding, caressing, teasing, until at last he released his hold on his swollen cock to give himself up to the ocean that had at last come to possess him.

In response, the gentle touches wound higher up his body, caressing the inside of his thighs, exploring between his buttocks and slipping into his hole at last with such curious gentleness that the only sound that escaped Gilliatt was a sigh when he found himself gently spread and filled for the first time.

Slowly, the ocean penetrated deeper until Gilliatt heard himself moaning at the strange caress. He had not thought that it was possible to be touched from the inside, but now that more and more of the strangely alive heat filled him, he found his body giving way to the exploration of his most secret, intimate spaces, surrendering to the gentle demand until he felt himself spread open wide, the firm, agile limbs of the ocean pulsing inside him and sliding ever deeper, twisting around each other inside him, sliding back and forth and against each other as his channel relentlessly stretched around them until he felt himself utterly helpless, unable to speak or think at the deep pleasure of the strange penetration.

His aching cock had so far been forgotten, and he had not dared to reach out for it himself, for he did not want the experience to end, as strange and terrifying as it was. Now, something soft and warm enveloped him. He was too overwhelmed to cry out, a knot of living heat still pulsing deep inside his body, held aloft in the water by what seemed a part of the ocean that had somehow become solid.

With his eyes closed and his arms stretched out, he floated in the water, shuddering in time with the pulses of the living thing possessing him so deeply and still penetrating ever deeper, his hard shaft now gently enfolded as if the ocean wanted to devour him.

But Gilliatt was not afraid. Every part of his being had turned to pleasure, and as he shivered and arched in his dream, he gave this part of himself up to the ocean as well, allowed his hard length to be swallowed down, his testicles to be weighed and tasted and caressed. It appeared to him that he had trembled thus for hours beneath the stars, held in the unfathomable embrace of the ocean, and when he found release at last, it felt as if he was being drunk down—not just the heat of his seed, but as if all of his longing was drawn out of him as well, devoured and digested, until he was nothing more than a limp, empty shell floating on the ocean.

And still the ocean was inside him, curling within him, making him tremble and sob and surrender to it all over again.

How often the power that held him drank him down, he could not say.

When he woke, it was to the first light of morning, alone on the deck of the Durande, his wet clothes beside him, his limbs naked, and a strange, internal ache that for the first time in all the weeks he had worked on the Durande brought tears of loneliness into his eyes so that he curled up on the deck naked as he was and wept beneath the rising sun.

***

By the time the steam engine of the Durande had finally been freed from the ship’s metal hull, his own sloop low in the water under the heavy load, everything prepared to make their return to St. Sampson once more, he had forgotten that strange night and his encounter with the ocean in the illuminated sea.

Exhausted and too hungry to be able to think of anything but the crayfish and crabs that made their home around the Douvres, he had followed a crab until it scurried into an underwater opening to escape from his pursuit. Hungry and desperate, he had stuck his hand into the crevice to see if he could retrieve the crab—but instead of finding nourishment, what he had found was a monster conjured by his worst nightmares.

Within seconds, he was held in a horrible embrace, long tentacles wound tightly around his limbs. Each of his arms was ensnared by a tentacle, which wrapped itself in spirals around each limb and tightened until he cried out in terror, finding himself held fast.

Another long protuberance escaped from the underwater gap beneath the rocks, and Gilliatt could only watch in terror as it wound around his right leg, curving higher and higher until the tip of the tentacle rested against the inside of his thigh. The more he struggled, the tighter it gripped him.

Where had his knife gone?

In panic he cast around for it, but when he finally spied the gleam of metal, he sobbed in despair, for the current of the ocean had caused it to drift from him so that it had come to rest on the bottom of the pool, far out of his reach.

Then another long limb unfurled from beneath the rock, sliding up his other leg. Gilliatt cried out in terror, fighting against the nightmarish monster that had overwhelmed him—but even had he not been weakened by hunger and thirst and week after week of hard work, all alone out here in the ocean, it would have been impossible to escape the hold the creature had on him. Its limbs were strong and flexible, and the more he struggled, the more the tentacles tightened their hold.

Despite his terror, he could feel something niggling in the back of his mind—there was a certain familiarity to the sensation, although he could not say why that should be so. Even in his deepest nightmares he had never dreamed that such a monster should exist that now came slowly forward from the underwater cave.

With two tentacles still holding on to the rock, two additional limbs now came sliding up his legs—and in the center, where the tentacles met, there was a horrifying mass of flesh: a creature, a monster of the deepest sea, with two eyes that looked upon his impotent struggle as a spider watches the struggle of the fly caught in its net.

Gilliatt cried out when the creature fully enveloped him in its embrace. His heart was racing so hard with terror that he could barely think. All that was left was purest instinct—an animal will to fight, to live, to survive at all costs.

But no matter how hard he struggled, he was caught so completely in the monster’s embrace that in the end, his heart shuddering wildly, his body stilled in exhaustion.

That was when he felt another tentacle slowly sliding behind his testicles, exploring along his crease, tasting the rim of his hole, the tip of the tentacle deceptively gentle, soft and warm like human skin.

The body of the monster was fully upon him now, slick and heavy, and as he froze in new terror, a memory returned: the sensation of being carried by the ocean, of being caressed and held by warm, long limbs, of being opened and taken and filled by the ocean’s will until it seemed that there was no part of him left that had not been touched by its salt.

Then the tentacle pressed against his opening, its intention unmistakable. Gilliatt cried out again in horror and fear, struggling against the firm grip on him even though he knew that it was hopeless, that it was too late, that death would come to him as an unspeakable violation…

A moment later, the tight pressure around his limbs ceased.

The monster that had seemed so intent on devouring him mere moments ago was floating in the water before him, its long tentacles releasing their hold on his limbs like unfurling leaves.

Then, just like that, the creature vanished into the crevice below the water once more, and Gilliatt was alone with no sound but that of the water lapping against the rock and the roar of his blood in his ears.

***

Little by little, the sea had risen while Gilliatt remained upon the Gild-Holm-’Ur seat, his eyes remaining upon the ship _Cashmere_ long after the water had reached such a height that there was no escape left from the rock.

Each step Gilliatt had taken on this day had been heavy with the certainty that he would no more walk through St. Sampson or the Bû de la Rue. Now, as the ship grew smaller and smaller at the same time as the sun descended towards the horizon, he did not stir. He kept his eyes upon the _Cashmere_ even as the rising water reached his knees, his thighs, his chest.

The rock cradled him, and in his seat, he watched until the ship had grown no larger than a speck of dust.

The water lapped at his chin.

Gilliatt did not feel the cold. He smiled as he followed the course of the _Cashmere_ , although now it was barely visible.

The water touched his lips, kissing him gently like the lover he had never known.

In the distance, the sky darkened with the approaching night. At the same time as the sun slipped below the horizon, the _Cashmere_ vanished from view.

And Gilliatt felt the water close over his head.

He did not feel panic. The ocean had been his sole companion in a solitary life; even when death took his mother from him, the ocean had remained with him, as it always had.

Now Gilliatt surrendered himself to its embrace, the currents there at the Gild-Holm-’Ur pulling his body this way and that.

Floating in the water in those last moments of his life, he did not hear the sharp cries of the birds circling above him. Had he been able to swim back up to the surface, he might have recognized some of his friends from those long, lonely weeks upon the Douvres who had once shared their rainwater with him.

But Gilliatt sank deeper and deeper, the forceful currents pulling him far away from the rocks of Guernsey instead of smashing him against the hard stone.

There was no more breath left in his chest. Darkness was encroaching on his vision. He thought he saw below him a gentle glow, as if the depths of the ocean had been set alight, a phosphorescence spreading through the current of water that carried him until he felt himself enveloped by a gentle luminance.

The ocean had come to embrace him once more, and when darkness finally took hold of him, he gave himself up willingly to it.

***

Gilliatt slowly resurfaced from a strange dream of being held in a warm embrace. For a moment, he allowed himself to float in the last remnants of that dream: the soothing sensation of strong arms that held him, a kiss salty with the foam of the ocean, the tender care of something much older and stronger than him...

Even now, he could feel the gentle touch of the water. It lapped against his chest. It was warm—warmer than it should be at this time of the year, and so was the air that surrounded him.

There was no wind, no sound of waves breaking against the rocks of the Gild-Holm-’Ur.

When he opened his eyes, he was not surprised to see that he was no longer sitting in the Gild-Holm-’Ur seat. Instead, he found himself in a grotto, half-resting in the water, supported by a rock that had been smoothed and hollowed by the tide for hundreds of years. All around him, there was a gentle glow that illuminated the cavern and the water that cradled him.

He knew this grotto. He had come here once before.

It was the home of the devil-fish who had attacked him.

The thought did not kindle any fear. Gilliatt had surrendered himself to death long before he had taken a first step towards the Beast’s Horn, making his way towards the Gild-Holm-’Ur despite the returning tide.

He had thought to surrender his life to the ocean. But if fate had decreed that he should die at the hands of the monster he had so narrowly escaped before, then he would surrender to that fate as well.

Slowly, he sat up. The water he was sitting in was illuminated by the same light that lit the cave. The water itself seemed to emanate the silver radiance. Beneath the water, he could see the outline of his legs aglow; filaments of light clung to the outline of his testicles as well, his soft shaft cradled against it, every single one of the coarse hairs growing at its root now shining with the same light.

In wonder, he dipped a hand into the water. Light clung to every finger, and when he raised his hand, droplets of that same light dripped onto his chest, running down towards where a line of hair grew below his navel.

A strange memory rose within him. He had seen this light before. He remembered now the dream he had had, and he remembered too the creature that had taken hold of him in it. In his dream, he had thought himself possessed by the ocean itself—but was not the memory of limbs wrapping around him, holding him, a sensation that he had known more than once?

There was a gentle touch at his ankle. Gilliatt shivered instinctively, but did not pull away. As he gazed into the water, he saw what appeared to be a length of pure light slowly begin to wind around his leg. The sensation was indeed familiar—and so was the tentacle, illuminated by the same light that clung to his own body.

This time, Gilliatt did not cry out in terror. Trembling, he surrendered himself to the sensation with the same dreamlike abandon with which he had walked out to the Gild-Holm-’Ur seat, although he had not trembled then.

As if made bolder by his acquiescence, a second tentacle touched the other leg.

Gently, it wound upward. Gilliatt allowed his legs to spread for it, sinking back in the water against the stone that cradled him, and offering no resistance when the luminescent tentacles wound around his thighs. Another tentacle rose from the water. This time, instead of taking hold of an arm to hold him immobile, it slowly explored his chest. Liquid light ran down his skin, dripping from the tentacle, and despite himself, Gilliatt found himself gasping when a small sucker attached itself to his nipple. A fourth tentacle rose, and it came to explore the outline of his gasping mouth with strange gentleness.

Gilliatt did not resist when it slipped inside between his lips. The tentacle was slick and warm, but although he should have been horrified at the fate that awaited him, there was nothing repellent about the act. When he closed his eyes, he imagined the ocean kissing him: a taste that was briny like saltwater, a warm, slick presence in his mouth that slid against his tongue, curious, but still gentle.

Then, at last, there came the slow, questing touch of another tentacle again that wound its way behind his testicles, teasing the rim of his hole.

Tears rose to Gilliatt’s eyes once more as he thought of the _Cashmere_ making its way beyond the horizon, taking his hope and his future with it, and when the tentacle began to exert pressure, he allowed that too, gasping into the creature’s strange kiss as his body yielded to the penetration.

As it had done the first time, the pieuvre possessed him deeply, lovingly. It felt as if the long slide of its limb inside him would never end. When Gilliatt opened his eyes, dazed, he found that his shaft had risen to aching hardness, and still the pieuvre slid in deeper, filling him with its curious, agile heat until it felt that there must be more of the creature inside than outside him.

At last, a second tentacle teased at his spread hole. He moaned against the tentacle in his mouth as it rubbed against the stretched muscle, slick and warm, and then slid inside him as well, stretching him even further. The fullness was nearly unbearable, but when it pushed deeper, all he felt was wave after wave of white-hot pleasure. He could feel the tentacles twine around each other inside him in a rhythmic pulse that made him tremble, and then they slid even deeper, deeper, until he arched on the stone, warm water lapping at his chest, the tentacle in his mouth sliding down his throat until he could not even moan anymore, the salt of the sea or of tears on his tongue, he could no longer say—and then the creature heaved itself out of the water, looking at him from its large eyes as he trembled, and Gilliatt watched, shuddering with pleasure, as the large, glutinous mass of its body engulfed his aching cock.

Cradled by the sea and the pieuvre, he let the creature draw his release from him. Impaled on its tentacles, he could do nothing more but tremble helplessly, his entire body arching up on the rock where he was spread out like a sacrifice—and the pieuvre took and took, drinking him down until it felt as if it was drawing the very essence of his being into it, and still Gilliatt was not afraid as his body continued to throb and pulse as he was emptied, spurt after spurt drawn lovingly from him and into the creature to whose embrace he abandoned himself until at last, he found his consciousness fade once more with the sultry touch of its limbs still coiled warm and deep inside him.

***

If he dreamed after that, he could not say. When he woke, he found himself still in the pieuvre’s grotto, the warm water no longer alight, although there was still a gentle glow at the bottom of the deep pool before him, so that by its light, he could make out his surroundings. Samphire grew on the rocks nearby. The bottom of the shallow water was filled with gleaming pearls, ivory shells, glittering crustaceans in azure and gold and purple, and further away a veritable forest of kelp. Water dripped from verdant moss that grew above, causing ripples to spread through the pool now and then. In the strange light coming from below, he saw small flowers of a bright blue, shining like small flames, the leaves of the plant on which they grew as brilliant as emeralds below the water, the flowers themselves shining like sapphire.

Gilliatt himself was no longer resting on the smooth rock where he had spread himself out as a sacrifice to the sea. Instead, he had slept on soft, fine sand at the back of the creature’s cave, safe from the rising water. The tide had to be at its highest point now; he could no longer make out the opening through which he had once entered when the tide was low, save that it had to be where the dim light came from.

The pieuvre was not visible anywhere either, although Gilliatt’s body still ached deep inside in a strangely pleasant way. There was a round, red welt encircling one of his nipples, and when he hesitantly touched it, the nub of flesh was still sensitive and swollen. On his tongue, he could still taste the salt of the creature’s slick skin.

When Gilliatt drew himself up, he saw that he was not alone. On the white sand beside him, a fish had been left, and one of the spiky sea-urchins.

Gilliatt looked at the fish for a long time.

Far away from the Douvres, the _Cashmere_ had entered English water. It was currently making its way along the coast, Southampton already visible. On the deck, on their little bench, Déruchette and Caudray gazed at each other, their fingers entwined, the first rays of the morning sun dancing on the calm sea.

In the pieuvre’s grotto, Gilliatt turned his eyes towards the water. He felt hollow. The creature that had possessed him had penetrated him so deeply that his chest ached, as if its tentacles had slid all the way inside, turning all those lonely, secret places of his body inside out, scouring it with sea water, and filling the empty space in his chest where once the thought of Déruchette had beaten so faithfully with its salt instead.

A sudden cry made Gilliatt look up. It was a familiar sound, and as he turned around, he saw that through some small opening above him, a seabird must have found its way inside.

For weeks, he and the birds had shared this small rock. It was no more frightened of him than it would be of one of its own flock. Gilliatt watched as the sea mew tilted its head, then came hopping closer. Its eyes were fastened onto the sea-urchin.

Again Gilliatt looked at the water. Even now, a man diving for the underwater crevice might manage to make his escape from the grotto. Even now, there was the cold, dark embrace of the ocean awaiting him outside—a different embrace than the one he had known, an embrace that promised quiet and eternal rest. If he survived the dive through the crevice, he could find shelter on the Durande or on the large rock known as The Man. There, the pieuvre could not follow, and without even the small amount of rye flour that had been left to him before, he would live days—weeks, at most, surviving on what limpets he had not yet found. The ocean had taken a first choice from him—but if the water did not want him, then starvation was a crueler master, and one that would not show the mercy the pieuvre had.

Gilliatt’s gaze returned to the bird, who cooed at him in question. He reached out and took hold of the sea-urchin.

Across the Channel, the _Cashmere_ began the work of lowering its sails, the harbor close now. In the cave, the glowing light subtly increased, and when Gilliatt looked up, he saw a shape, quiet and thoughtful, hesitating in the deepest part of the pool where the opening had to be. There it remained, shining with a subtle light, as though it hesitated to approach—now, when it had already tasted his surrender in all its forms.

Gilliatt waited, contemplating the creature that had shared its grotto and its food with him. Long minutes passed. Far away, on the _Cashmere_ , the captain gave a command, the anchor was dropped, the ship mooring in the harbor of Southampton.

Gilliatt broke the spiny shell open. He drank down the raw contents of one half of the sea-urchin. Then he placed the other half down, and the bird came closer, feeding as he watched it, with the brine of the ocean still in his mouth.


End file.
